Whereas
he, buried, as it were to his shoulders, had naught of his body free,
save his brain, and that remained free, no doubt, in order that he might
suffer the more. She had still been his so long as she had not belonged
to another; and if he had been enduring such agony during the past hour,
it was only through this final rending which, this time, parted her from
him forever and forever.
Then rage shook Pierre from head to foot. He was tempted to return to the
Basilica, and cry the truth aloud to Marie. The miracle was a lie! The
helpful beneficence of an all-powerful Divinity was but so much illusion!
Nature alone had acted, life had conquered once again. And he would have
given proofs: he would have shown how life, the only sovereign, worked
for health amid all the sufferings of this terrestrial sphere. And then
they would have gone off together; they would have fled far, far away,
that they might be happy. But a sudden terror took possession of him.
What! lay hands upon that little spotless soul, kill all belief in it,
fill it with the ruins which worked such havoc in his own soul? It all at
once occurred to him that this would be odious sacrilege. He would
afterwards become horrified with himself, he would look upon himself as
her murderer were he some day to realise that he was unable to give her a
happiness equal to that which she would have lost. Perhaps, too, she
would not believe him. And, moreover, would she ever consent to marry a
priest who had broken his vows? She who would always retain the sweet and
never-to be-forgotten memory of how she had been healed in ecstasy! His
design then appeared to him insane, monstrous, polluting.
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